The enemy is media channels, not the world itself

Evidence

To stand apart is to take the view of the outsider without leaving, always oriented toward what it is you would have left. It means not fleeing your enemy, but knowing your enemy, which turns out not to be the world—contemptus mundi—but the channels through which you encounter it day to day. It also means giving yourself the critical break that media cycles and narratives will not, allowing yourself to believe in another world while living in this one. Unlike the libertarian blank slate that appeals to outer space, or even the communes that sought to break with historical time, this “other world” is not a rejection of the one we live in. Rather, it is a perfect image of this world when justice has been realized with and for everyone and everything that is already here. To stand apart is to look at the world (now) from the point of view of the world as it could be (the future), with all of the hope and sorrowful contemplation that this entails. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 233

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gives the precise content of ‘standing apart’ including its crucial reorientation: the target is the channel, not the world.
• DEEPTHINKING: The turn from the world to the channels of encounter, plus ‘another world as a future image of this one when justice is realized,’ is a genuinely dense redefinition of critical positioning that rewards long sitting.